Motivational Quotes

Quotations

He wrapped himself in quotations -- as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.

- Kipling, Rudyard

Best Quotes about Quotations

I must claim the quoter's privilege of giving only as much of the text as will suit my purpose, said Tan-Chun. If I told you how it went on, I should end up by contradicting myself!

Cao Xueqin

Life itself is a quotation.

Jorge Luis Borges

I have suffered a great deal from writers who have quoted this or that sentence of mine either out of its context or in juxtaposition to some incongruous matter which quite distorted my meaning , or destroyed it altogether.

Alfred North Whitehead

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.

David H. Comins

Quotes from Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara... are as germane to our highly technological, computerized society as a stagecoach on a jet runway at Kennedy airport.

Alinsky, Saul

Fidelity to the subject's thought and to his characteristic way of expressing himself is the sine qua non of journalistic quotation.

Malcolm, Janet

He wrapped himself in quotations- as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.

Rudyard Kipling

A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion.

Robert Chapman

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

Roux, Joseph

10.

Stronger than an army is a quotation whose time has come.

Gates, W. I. E.

11.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

12.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.

William Feather

13.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Oscar Wilde

14.

In quoting of books, quote such authors as are usually read; others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them.

Selden, John

15.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Samuel Johnson

16.

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.

Mark Twain

17.

Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

Ambrose Bierce

18.

A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

Joseph Roux

19.

Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

20.

Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised; the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous; the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium.

Fowler, Henry W.

21.

Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?

Philip G. Hamerton

22.

Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.

Simeon Strunsky

23.

There are two kinds of marriages -- where the husband quotes the wife and where the wife quotes the husband.

Odets, Clifford

24.

One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people's throats --and one always secretes too much jelly.

Woolf, Virginia

25.

An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.

Edwin P. Whipple

26.

The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

27.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

Seneca

28.

Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.

Alfred North Whitehead

29.

I quote others in order to better express myself.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

30.

He wrapped himself in quotations -- as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.

Kipling, Rudyard

31.

If you have any doubts that we live in a society controlled by men, try reading down the index of contributors to a volume of quotations, looking for women's names.

Elaine Gill

32.

Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.

Debord, Guy

33.

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

Baldwin, James

34.

Quotations offer one kind of break in what the eye can see, the ear can hear.

Hassan, Ihab

35.

A book that furnishes no quotations is no book -- it is a plaything.

Peacock, Thomas Love

36.

There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.

Pierre Bayle

37.

I think we must quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing.

Fadiman, Clifton

38.

A book of quotations . . . can never be complete.

Robert M. Hamilton

39.

A short saying oft contains much wisdom.

Sophocles

40.

I never have found the perfect quote. At best I have been able to find a string of quotations which merely circle the ineffable idea I seek to express.

Caldwell O'Keefe

41.

The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make.

Dan Quayle

42.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

43.

The essence of a quote is the compression of a mass of thought and observation into a single saying.

Morely, John

44.

What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?

Doctor Who

45.

I pick my favorite quotation and store them in my mind as ready armor, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.

Burns, Robert

46.

Why are not more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have not the time nor means to get more.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

47.

I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied,'Verify your quotations.'

Sir Winston Churchill

48.

In the dying world I come from quotation is a national vice. It used to be the classics, now it's lyric verse.

Waugh, Evelyn

49.

We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our white mythology. Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.

Hassan, Ihab

50.

Great speeches have always had great soundbites. The problem now is that the young technicians who put together speeches are paying attention only to the soundbite, not to the text as a whole, not realizing that all great soundbites happen by accident, which is to say, all great soundbites are yielded up inevitably, as part of the natural expression of the text. They are part of the tapestry, they aren't a little flower somebody sewed on.

Noonan, Peggy